Suopermarket chain Lidl is on the lookout for sites for new stores - and you could earn a nice £22,500 if you can point them in the right direction.
The German discounter is offering to pay a finder's fee to anyone who helps it to ramp up its expansion plan for an extra 1,100 shops in the UK by the end of 2025.
Lidl - which is now Britain's sixth-largest grocer - said the fee would be either 1.5 per cent of the total freehold purchase price or 10 per cent of the first years rent for leaseholds, which would equate to £22,500 for a completed £1.5million site purchase.
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The company is set to invest £1.3 billion in its big plans, and unusually, it is offering to pay members of the public who identify previously undiscovered sites for new stores. Store chains usually engage experts to locate suitable sites. The supermarket is opening an average of one new store a week and is aiming for 1,100 stores by the end of 2025, according to Richard Taylor, chief development officer at Lidl GB.
Since the beginning of 2022, Lidl has already opened 23 new stores in the UK, bringing the total to around 920. In our region, a new store was opened next to North Tyneside General Hospital in North Shields towards the end of last year, creating 40 jobs. It was also announced earlier this month that plans for another new store, in Shieldfield, Newcastle, have been approved, despite opposition from rival Tesco. It is thought the new store will create another 40 local jobs.
"There are still communities up and down the country that are telling us how much they want – and need – a Lidl store," said Mr Taylor. "We work with some of the best people in the industry to identify new sites, but we also know how engaged our future and existing customers are and we want to build on this. Our finder’s fees are, therefore, available to absolutely anyone that can identify a viable option for a new store that we’re not already aware of, and we welcome any suitable suggestions.”
Unlike the so-called Big Four - Tesco , Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons - Lidl and rival discounter Aldi are expanding aggressively. Monthly industry data published this week showed that Aldi and Lidl are the fastest-growing UK grocers at a time when a cost of living crisis is hitting households. Lidl is now the sixth largest supermarket in the UK with a market share of 6.6%, according to data from Kantar.
UK shoppers are increasingly turning to discount supermarkets as inflation squeezes household budgets. Over one million extra shoppers visited Aldi and Lidl over the past three months compared with this time last year.
